It has been known for long that light curing devices consisting each of one handpiece and one base station, have to be calibrated, as the optical system of the light curing device as provided in the handpiece, may comprise certain manufacturing spreads.
This includes both the light source that mostly consists of a plurality of LED chips that are arranged next to one another and collectively emit light, and also the light guiding rod, but also a converging lens provided between the LED chips and the light guiding rod, or an additional attachment that is provided at the front end of the light guiding rod.
Light guiding rods are often interchangeable in order to enable a sterilization by autoclave, and each light guiding rod comprises a special transmission characteristic, with the consequence that also in this regard certain manufacturing spreads are present.
In order to achieve a constant light curing result, light curing devices therefore must be calibrated and parameterized.
On the other hand, only a limited space is available for the operating elements at the handpiece. In case of pistol-shaped light curing devices, but also in case of rod-shaped light curing devices and their handpieces, usually a trigger button is provided, and an additional operating function may be provided by pressing longer or repeatedly pressing briefly the trigger button.
Moreover, a display element in the form of a LCD display that is spatially quite limited, is provided that provides specific basic information to the user, and, where appropriate, also display LEDs are provided that visualize the light curing operation.
For the transmission of information between the light curing device and the associated base stations it is provided according to DE 103 19 010 B4 to provide the charging plug-in contacts for charging the accumulator of the handpiece, or, if applicable, additional contacts via which information between the light curing device and the handpiece can be transmitted.
This kind of data transmission is basically well suited for handpieces in pistol-shape. In case of handpieces having the shape of pins, the charging contacts are usually disposed at the lower side of the handpiece, and are to abut on the corresponding counter contacts at the charging tray of the base station. This quite free bearing indeed enables a quite reliable charging operation, even if short-term interruptions of the contact occur in the case of vibrations of the base station; those do not impair the charging cycle.
However, there may arise disruptions with the data transmission that—without respective plausibility checks etc.—may affect the reliability of the calibration and parameterization of the handpiece.
In contrast thereto, the invention is based on the object of providing a light curing device according to the preamble of claim 1, which light curing device may be reliably calibrated and/or parameterized, in particular if it is present in pin shape.